Go In The Snow With Hopped-Up Snowmobile

Inland Northwest residents who start thinking seriously about making their snowmobiles more powerful will soon find themselves in a group that is almost cultlike in its pursuit of performance.

“When it comes to two-cycle engine performance, the increases end when the pocketbook empties,” says Eric Crofoot, one of the mechanics at Westside Honda Yamaha Polaris in Spokane. “Essentially, a person can just keep modifying their sled with aftermarket parts until they reach whatever performance level they want.”

Westside’s mechanics have a far-reaching reputation for hopping up the hottest sleds with the most upto-the-minute performance parts. As testament, when I visited Crofoot and his co-workers at their shop a couple of weeks ago, he had just gotten off the phone with a customer from Dubois, Wyo.

Crofoot explained that manufacturers build snowmobiles for different uses. Some are built for trail riders. Others are designed for off-trail use and hill climbing. Each type of snowmobile has its own performance characteristics and compromises.

He said the two hottest consumer machines right now are the Yamaha V-max 600 series and the Polaris Indy Ultra Series.

The Yamaha Vmax 600 XT, with a twin, 600cc engine, was voted 1995 All Star Trail Sled of the Year by SnoWest magazine. Among its attributes are reportedly the smoothest ride in the industry and unsurpassed noise suppression for the power. “This is more of a trail sled and it costs anywhere from $5,000 to $6,600,” Crofoot said. “The Polaris Indy Ultra series has a 680cc, 3-cylinder engine. It’s known more as an off-trail, terrain, and hillclimbing machine that runs about $6,900.”

Both the Yamaha and the Polaris will do 100 mph or more, “right out of the box,” according to Crofoot.

So why would anyone want more power? According to Westside’s employees, it is because people like to outperform their friends.

“I just had a guy offer me a $500 tip if I could rig his sled so he could outrun his friend,” said Crofoot with a smile. “It happens all the time around here, but we don’t take it. We work as a team from sales, to the mechanics, to parts, to the office and we have the support of our boss. The customer gets what they pay for, nothing less.”

When a customer does want to up the ante, Crofoot recommends a performance package, not a single part swap. The reason is simple: Snowmobiles are a system of coordinated working parts. Change one thing and it can affect others and overall performance may actually decrease. But tune the whole package and look out.

“The biggest mistake I see people make is they try to modify a sled themselves or have a shop with very little experience do it,” Crofoot said.

The typical performance package begins with changing the exhaust system. Instead of one pipe carrying exhaust away from all three cylinders, three separate, lightweight pipes are installed. They are tuned to improve each cylinder’s efficiency and increase horsepower.

To get the most out of a set of pipes, Crofoot explained, new cylinder heads or remachined stock heads are put on to decrease cylinder volume and raise the compression.

Next, the carburetors are tuned and maybe bored out to match the needs of the increased compression and exhaust volume.

Since snowmobiles operate with a sort of automatic transmission, the clutches must be tuned to efficiently handle the increased rpms. Gear and track changes might also be in order if the application warrants it.

“The typical snowmobile engine will run 60 percent of its potential 80 percent of the time,” said Crofoot. “With aftermarket performance modifications, we like to have the engine run 80 to 90 percent of its potential 80 percent of the time. To do 100 percent requires daily tuning to compensate for temperature, weather and altitude changes.”

Typical performance packages start at $250, including labor, and run as high as the wallet is thick.

Beyond that, for the consumer obsessed with speed and power, the sky’s the limit. Turbocharging starts at $2,500 for instance. And nitrous-oxide injection systems are not uncommon.